This Life Can Be Brutal

“This life can be brutal, but it is never harder than when you feel alone. Aloneness is one of the great illusions of the world. When we feel alone, we forget our great commonality. We can then become pessimistic or fatalistic about life. You are not alone, and there is so much goodness in the world. Our goodness is so resilient and ever wanting to express and serve. You can escape from ugliness and flee to reverence, beauty, and awe. Seek out spiritual communion with nature and different ideas and people. Strive to develop your understanding of the universal human struggle for peace and existence on this planet. It is amazing how huge problems shrink as our awareness expands. As you expand yourself, you will realize that you are not so different from others in your suffering, wishes, and hopes. Beneath the suffering we are all the same vast beings, and if you look deeply enough you will discover that you love people, and you care, even for people with whom you disagree or don’t understand. The sweetness in life did not go away; we turned our backs on her. Turn away from the ugliness and reunite with beauty. You have to want the beauty of life really bad, and you have to take action and look for it. You have to become a beauty seeker. You may not realize it yet, but someone, somewhere in the future needs you, and you have something great to offer others in this life. You are never alone.” —Bryant McGill

The Decision To Be Positive

“The decision to be positive is not one that disregards or belittles sadness that exists. It is rather a conscious choice to focus on the good and to cultivate happiness – genuine happiness. Happiness is not a limited resource. When we devote our energy and time to trivial matters and choose to stress over things that ultimately are insignificant, from that point, we perpetuate our own sadness and lose sight of the things that really make us happy and rationalize our way out of doing amazing things.” –Christopher Aiff

Primal Doubts

“Primal doubts are the worst; I’m ugly, I’m fat, I’m not smart or good enough. The difficult thing is that no matter how inaccurate — primal doubts can seem very real — and what seems real is real in a psychosomatic sense. And, the world can indeed judge us very harshly, and those judgments can truly impact our lives in ways that are catastrophic to our self-image if we are not deeply secure in ourselves. But no matter how the world judges us, it’s ultimately our inner demons that we contend with day-to-day; a fight no one can win for us, but ourselves. The battle takes place in the mind and is fought with our inherited and modeled skills, and our inner-voice.” 

-Bryant McGill

As A Child…

“As a child I felt myself to be alone, and I am still, because I know things and must hint at things which others apparently know nothing of, and for the most part do not want to know.” -Carl G. Jung: The Undiscovered Self, Jung on Alchemy

I came across this quote the other day. I felt this way as a child. I feel this way as an adult. I suspect it plays a huge role in why I am such an introverted extrovert. Thankfully I’ve long since stopped listening to other people’s opinions and listen solely to myself. Unfortunately, sometimes nagging fuckers get through and it pisses me off. Mama always said there’d be days like this. 😦

To Return…

“To return to what’s real, begin to question things. Don’t believe any of it; the ugliness and negativity. Don’t accept any of the falsity, but also don’t become angrily rebellious — joyfully reject it all. Throw off the lies and illusions with a smile and call-out to the essential truth of what it means to be a human being — life will answer you back. Finding essential truth involves uncovering who you really are. Your sadness may just be calling you back to the real. Go real hunting; look for what is real. In this world, much of what is real is hidden below the surface. Real is resilient. You can see real in the grass breaking through the concrete sidewalk. Real is unstoppable. Real is wild and unpredictable. Real dispels all spells. There is something real in you trying to break through the cracks. Something in you is seeking the light of life. The concrete and steel of your self-delusions will not stop your essence from escaping. You can’t hide from yourself forever. Your truth will shatter you if it must, but it is so much better if you set it free. Set your truth free. Set yourself free! We must reject the artificial and embrace what is real and true: Truth in food, community, relationships and self.”

—Bryant McGill